Out of Africa?

The world has been under the impression that Africa was a dark continent, that it was primitive. Scholars always refrained from using the words 'philosophy' and 'wisdom' in the same sentence when it came to Africa. People tend to look at this vast continent with scorn as a place where its natives delved in black magic and the belief in the occult practices.
The truth is far from that.

As far as philosophy is concerned, Africa can be divided into two geographical locations - North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. The contributions by the North African dwellers are said to be predating the Egyptian dynastic era. With the spread of the Abrahamic religions to this area, many thinkers gifted their input into Jewish, Christian and Islamic epistemologies. Offhand, philosophers such as Augustine of Hippo, Ibn Sab'in, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), and Ibn Bajjah come to mind.The Sub Saharan region, however, is more complicated. With 3,000 over tribes occupying that area with no written language or sacred text, analysis becomes problematic. The similarity is there, nevertheless, on the concept of time and personhood. If they are any indications, oral history and proverbs that had passed from generations to generations may give insight into their general outlook of life.

John Samuel Mbiti, a professor and a parish minister, through his research into African oral traditions, has challenged the long-held Christian assumption that African religious ideas were 'demonic and anti-Christian'.

Exciting concepts that I gathered after listening to Professor Peter Adamson's 'History of Africana Philosophy' involve the idea of God and time.

Sankofa symbol - Twi language, means 'reach back and get it' 

In these cultures, time is categorised into the past, present and immediate future. There is no future because the future is actually only in memory as we move along in time. Sasha (now) slowly moves along to become the long-forgotten past (Zamani). Sasha denotes spirits remembered by those living. As the present dies, they would eventually go into the hidden history, Zamani, where nobody present remembers. So, in a way, they are telling that time moves in a loop. We live for the future, but in actual fact, we get pushed into the past. The spirits only leave the mortal body but are forever present in the spiritual world. There is no distinction between the physical and spiritual world. The physical body decays, but the spirit moves to another existence.

This pretty much resonates with David Eagleman's 'Three Stages of Death': the first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

The African concept of God is closely linked to their dependence on Nature and land. A non-anthropomorphic omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient Supreme Being that exerts His powers via Nature and in phenomena beyond human control.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/African_philosophy

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Inevitable collateral damage?

The Battle of Algiers (1966)


Most movies take the side of either the victor or the oppressed. Surprisingly, this film gives a fair representation of the event said to have snowballed the fight for Algerian Independence. In the late 1950s, many ethnic Arab Muslims from Casbah of the Arab quarters started showing resistance to the French colonialists. FLN was a guerrilla organisation with a ragtag collection of delinquents, petty thieves and activists who created unrest in Algiers who started planting bombs and shooting of policemen in the European quarters.

1957 Algiers was a bustling modern city with its cafes, entertainment outlets, gambling den and flesh trade. We can see that there was an apparent divide rooted in the society, between the Arab Muslims and the Western outlooking French, Pied-Noir and Jews; between the economically deprived and the well-to-do; the colonial masters and natives.

Most films of historical nature would usually include raw footage from newsreel or newsflash. In this presentation, however, the Italian director, Pontecorvo, decided to reenact the whole scene on location in the Casbah (Arab settlement), demonstration, bombing and all too near perfection and conviction. Pontecorvo, himself a communist, was hired by the subsequent ruling government to highlight their plight. As the presentation did a witch hunt the French and put them in a negative light, it was banned in France 3 years after its release. Both parties, the resistance and the police seem justified in their actions and understand that lives had to be sacrificed for the good of the nation.

In modern times, this tactic of urban guerrilla warfare, where the locals insurgents perform their mischief and hide under the cloak of anonymity amongst the town folk had been emulated by many resistance fighters from Castro, Guevara, Jammu-Kashmir all the way to Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, Pentagon had used this film as a teaching material to impress upon the problematic nature of peace finding missions.

All in the name of oil and gas!

BBC Storyville: Mad Dog, Gaddafi's Secret World (2014)

The story of a the son of a Bedouin goatherd sounds almost similar to many other leaders who initially starts a revolution with many big plans to uplift the welfare of the people. He has grand plans but some how many of the plans fall flat. People start asking questioning whilst others support him. He gains absolute power and it corrupts absolutely. His enemies become enemy of the state and witch hunt starts.
One thing leads to another and things spiral out of control. Despot is killed by the same people who hailed him as king. Does it not give you the sense of deja vu?
This documentary makers managed to track down some of the people who were close to the despot when the going was good. Many of them were on the FBI's most wanted list; Gary Korkala, former poison dealer; Frank Terpil; Lutz Kayser, a German rocket scientist.
Muammar Gaddafi's father went out of his way to ensure that his son got some education. Gaddafi hero worshipped President Nasser of Egypt and yearned to build a socialist republic in Libya. After graduating from Royal Military Academy,  he masterminded a coup de tat of the Libya royalty King Idris. With the plush of oil money to spend obscenely, he initially invested a lot for the country. Unfortunately, the plans did not really work well. For example, schools were built but then there were no teachers to teach. Gaddafi soon developed a sense of grandiosity. He started financing terrorist activities. He became suspicious of his enemies. Anwar Sadat who tried to patch up with the Isralites became his enemy. Gaddafi even offered a reward for his assassination. As his influence waned in the Arab world, he started associating himself with the rest of Africa. He was close to Idi Amin and he called himself the King of Africa.
He openly supported the famed assassin Carlos the Jackal and Charles Taylor, the dictator from Liberia. Even the Africans started laughing at him.
He is said to have brokered the 1988 Pan Am 103 explosion in Lockerbie, Scotland.
International sanction of Libya followed. Gaddafi became a lonely man suspicious of all around him. He had a band of female bodyguards. He shot a local plane down just to show to the international audience and local people on the atrocity of international sanctions. He had a harem of girls and boys to entertain him. He was an avid user of Viagra. He even had a band of soldiers to apprehend young university students that pleases his eyes to gratify his urges.
Another grandiose plan of his is to be a nuclear power. Admiring Pakistan for their nuclear capabilities, he tried to engage a certain Pakistani scientist to this end. He also tried to buy Soviet bombs but in vain.
At one juncture, he was caught red handed trying to smuggle nuclear centrifuge part. Libya was warned as it might have the same fate as Iraq. Time went on...
Suddenly, the superpowers of the world lifted international sanctions. Libya and Gaddafi were no ore international pariahs, all in the name of oil and gas.
A rebel uprising in 2011 opposing widespread hardship and corruption executed him.

Nollywood for you!

We all know about Hollywood and how they try to propagate the Western values into our living room. Some actually think that there is a Jewish agenda that they are trying to fulfill. Then there is Bollywood and its sisters (Kollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood etcetera) all around the Indian subcontinent trying to detach yourself from reality, at least momentarily, to temporarily relieve you from your daily stresses of life.
Now, have you heard of a country which started indulging into the celluloid industry only in 60s, found difficult to finance its film industry, had a skeletal budget, got a shot in the arm with the advent of digital technology and have been churning more movies since the turn into the 21st century to capture the second spot in front of Hollywood (after India, of course) in terms of number of films released?
I thought so too. You would not have guessed it. It is Nigeria and their industry is fondly known as Nollywood.

http://thisisnollywood.com/nollywood.htm
Nollywood, Nigeria's booming film industry, is the world's third largest producer of feature films. Unlike Hollywood and Bollywood, however, Nollywood movies are made on shoe-string budgets of time and money. An average production takes just 10 days and costs approximately $15,000.Yet in just 13 years, Nollywood has grown from nothing into a $250 million dollar-a-year industry that employs thousands of people. The Nollywood phenomenon was made possible by two main ingredients: Nigerian entrepreneurship and digital technology.
In the late 1980's and early 1990's, Lagos and other African cities faced growing epidemics of crime and insecurity. Movie theaters closed as people became reluctant to be out on the streets after dark. Videos for home viewing imported from the West and India were only mildly popular. Nigerians saw an opportunity to fill the void with products of their own.
Experts credit the birth of Nollywood to a businessman who needed to unload thousands of blank tapes and to the 1992 video release of Living in Bondage, a movie with a tale of the occult that was an instant and huge-selling success. It wasn't long before other would-be producers jumped on the bandwagon.
Currently, some 300 producers churn out movies at an astonishing rate—somewhere between 500 and 1,000 a year. Nigerian directors adopt new technologies as soon as they become affordable. Bulky videotape cameras gave way to their digital descendents, which are now being replaced by HD cameras. Editing, music, and other post-production work is done with common computer-based systems. The films go straight to DVD and VCD disks.
Thirty new titles are delivered to Nigerian shops and market stalls every week, where an average film sells 50,000 copies. A hit may sell several hundred thousand. Disks sell for two dollars each, making them affordable for most Nigerians and providing astounding returns for the producers.
Not much else about Nollywood would make Hollywood envious. Shooting is inevitably delayed by obstacles unimaginable in California. Lagos, home to 15 million people (expected to be 24 million by 2010), is a nightmare of snarled traffic, pollution, decaying infrastructure, and frequent power outages.
Star actors, often working on several films at once, frequently don't show up when they're supposed to. Location shooting is often delayed by local thugs, or "touts", who extort money for protection before they will allow filming to take place in their territories.
Yet Nollywood producers are undeterred. They know they have struck a lucrative and long-neglected market - movies that offer audiences characters they can identify with in stories that relate to their everyday lives. Western action-adventures and Bollywood musicals provide little that is relevant to life in African slums and remote villages.
Nollywood stars are native Nigerians. Nollywood settings are familiar. Nollywood plots depict situations that people understand and confront daily; romance, comedy, the occult, crooked cops, prostitution, and HIV/AIDS.
"We are telling our own stories in our own way," director Bond Emeruwa says. "That is the appeal both for the filmmakers and for the audience."
The appeal stretches far beyond Nigeria. Nollywood films are proving popular all over English-speaking Africa and have become a staple on M-NET, the South African based satellite television network. Nigerian stars have become household names from Ghana to Zambia and beyond. The last few years have seen the growing popularity of Nollywood films among African diaspora in both Europe and America.
"Look out, Hollywood," one exuberant Nigerian producer exclaims. "Here we come!"